Patrick MacGill, Rifleman No. 3008, London Irish, was one of many thousands of Irishmen who fought in the First World War, and he articulates the experience of that tragic generation, conveying the horror of war but also the resilience of the men.

The book’s appearance proved deeply divisive owing to its fierce anticlericalism and unflinching portrayal of social conditions in the early years of the century. In the intervening years it has lost none of its power to shock

Peopled with extraordinary characters, suffused with humour and yet unflinching in its portrayal of the near slavery of the poor in Scotland and Ireland, Children of the Dead End sold 50,000 copies a year in the 1920s.